Armoire for daughter-in-law

Our son got married and as a wedding/Christmas/aniversary and any other holiday present our new daughter-in-law requested an Armoire and had specifics in mind. First off, she wanted walnut, a lot of drawers, necklace doors that swing out and 58” to the middle of the mirror.I didn’t have enough walnut to do the job so I went shopping and found nearly 200 bd. feet of kiln dried 5/4 run of the mill rough cut. The price was certainly right so I bought it all and talked him into throwing in a dozen 5/4 x x 8” x 8’ Cherry boards in on the deal.Anyway, I finally got it done and didn’t take nearly enough progress pictures I did include a couple of the carcus in progress.It was quite a challange “for me” trying to match up the different colors involved with walnut but symetrical doesn’t always fall in place when dealing with wood.I used solid wood everywhere except on the doors where I used walnut veneer for the long panels to avoid too much weight. The drawer runners are 1/4” x 2 1/2” oak and are set in dados in the cabinet sides. The drawers are all 3/8” walnut with box joints with 1/4” luan bottom. The drawer fronts are 5/8” walnut, glued and screwed to the drwaer.The base (table) is 5/4 walnut with laminated legs with a slight taper at the bottom inside of each leg. The taper was cut on the band saw and belt sanded.Most everything was prefinished prior to assembly to avoid any mishaps and irregular finish strokes. The drawer bottoms were duplicated, covered with psa Royal Blue Velvet and set in the drawers prior to setting the walnut dividers in.There is one ring drawer, 3 drawers with 3 cavities in each, 3 drawers with 9 cavities in each and one drawer void of dividers. The upper most drawer is not a drawer but a cover for the cavity under the lid/mirror.Sorry about the long post – Thanks for looking and yes I will answer questions if you have them.

You created a beautiful heirloom which I’m sure will be treasured for generations. I’m sure I can only imagine how long it took, especially with all those drawers. Great craftsmanship – you should be proud.

@ stanley2 – Except for looking on the net for ideas and pictures this project was totally seat of the pants. No prints, just an idea or two from DIL about what she wanted. I started with the carcass and drawer glides, it was ALL uphill from there.The velvet is a psa (sticky back) velvet and I made the drawers complete, glued and assembled. When it was time for velvet, I made a second drawer bottom allowing a heavy 1/32 clearance and applied the velvet with a wrap around on all 4 ends. They were then “pushed” into the drawer ( nice tight fit, they won’t come out) and the dividers then inserted.I was never so happy to finish a project

I was led to believe that an armoire was originally intended for holding military items for use at home or possibly even in the field.Maybe someone could explain it better. In any case this is a really beautiful piece of workmanship I take my preverbial hat off to you dear friend, God Bless and keep them coming. A real treat indeed for old Alistairs eyes.LOL Have safe fun Alistair

@scotsman – You are absolutely correct in that originally an Armoire was for weapons storage. However modern times have taken over. I store mine on my hip ( Kimber Ultra CDP11 ) and so many have taken to storing jewelry, necklaces etc in them as they have become quite an attractive piece of furniture.

Also, I would like to add that I stated previously that this was a seat of the pants undertaking and it was blind luck that I got it finished. I would be remiss if I failed to thank several on this forum for their advise and help. One in particular just happens to live in Kentucky and was an enormous help with text as well as pictures to help me along.Thanks